Jennifer Crusie

“But I’m not calm. It’s all a lie.” Quinn held Katie closer, breathing faster. “It’s just that when everybody else is screaming, somebody has to be mature and unemotional, so I have these brain-dead moments where I don’t react the way any sane human being would. I stay completely calm and ignore my feelings and compromise and make everything work again. And I’m not going to do that anymore. From now on, I’m going to be Zoe. Screw calm. Somebody else is going to have to do mature because I’m going to be selfish and get what I want.”

“I’m a feminist,” Quinn said. “We get irrational urges.”

“Quinn talked with her entire body: arms, eyes, shoulders, mouth. She was performance art, so alive that sometimes he argued with her just so he could watch her flush and gesture.”

“You got shot at and you still got me an air conditioner.”

“First, I'm not getting married, so you can forget the wife. Second, if I was insane enough to get married, I wouldn't have kids. Third, if I was insane enough to get married and have kids, it would be a cold day in hell I'd let you babysit.”

“Weet ik,' zei Nell. 'Dat maakt het juist zo moeilijk. Als je iemand kunt aankijken en zeggen: "Ik heb nooit van je gehouden, je was een vergissing," is dat één ding. Maar als je hem aankijkt en zegt: "Je was alles voor mij en ik verpestte het omdat ik niet voor mezelf kon opkomen," dan is dat heel anders. ... ”

“Hello. I like you naked. Never wear clothes again.”

“You don't believe in unconditional love. Neither does Alex. So you both threw away the best thing you ever had because you didn't believe in each other or yourselves.”

“He picked up the biscuit box and said, "Come on, Marlene. Back into hiding in case somebody comes looking for you, although only God knows why anybody would.""Marlene?" Nell said."I'm not calling anything SugarPie," Riley said. "That's obscene.”

“I swear," Nell said, walking faster, "you're looking at a life of hamburger and no yelling." She held the dachshund closer, and it sighed this time and put its head on her arm, and she stopped to look down intoits eyes. "Hello," she said, and SugarPie stared back, pathetic and wide-eyed in the glow from the streetlight, her eyelashes fluttering like a Southern belle confronted by a Yankee.”

“What about the check?" Suze said. "Pay it," he called back. "This is your party.""I don't like him," Suze said to Margie.Margie slid out of the booth. "Think of him as a growth experience.""Oh, good, I've been wanting one of those," Suze said and tossed a twenty on the table. It was too much, but she was in a hurry to steal a dog.”

“Does it ever occur to you not to sleep with women?""No," Riley said.”

“She was setting out china cups in their saucers, her long pale hands almost the same color as the cream china. "How do you take yours?""Four creams, two sugars," Riley said, still mesmerized by her.She stopped with a small waxed carton in her hand. "Really?""He's very young," Gabe said. "I take mine black.""He's very boring," Riley said. "Is that real cream?”

“Gabe turned his head to look up at her. The moon came through the skylight and backlit Chloe's short blonde curls, making her look angelically lovely. Too bad she was insane.”

“I have to see him and Trevor Ogilvie on Monday. Both senior partners at once.""Good for you. I hope Jack's in trouble up to his neck.""They're being blackmailed.""Blackmail?" Riley said, his voice full of disbelief. "Jack? There's stuff out there that's even worse than the stuff everybody knows about him?”

“This is a woman you've known less than twelve hours. It took you a year to pick out a couch, but you're seriously—"“Yes,” Roger said. “She's the one.”

“It was possible to love someone and hate him at the same time.”

“Everything will be fine. Nothing but good times ahead.”

“Everyone Lies.”

“I'm an open Minded Man. How about a threesom? You, me and the machine?”

“Really, The smart thing to do was to stop dating and get a cat.”

“I had you pictured dead in a pool of blood in front of the fireplace. And now you show up alive, and I want to kill you myself. (Zack)”

“You’ve always been nuts. That’s fine. I can deal with nuts. But lately, you’ve been depressed nuts. I can’t deal with that.- Anthony”

“I adored you,” North said. “I just didn’t tell you. You were the most amazing thing that had ever happened to me. Nothing else like you in my world before or since. I was crazy about you. I still am. Ten years later you walk into my office and I see you and it’s like the first time, I can’t think, I can’t talk, I just need you with me. It makes me crazy, but now that I’ve got you back . . . You’re everything, Andie. I should have told you that before.”

“Why are you offering me ten thousand dollars a month for babysitting? You didn’t pay the nannies that. It’s ridiculous. For ten thousand a month, you should not only get child care, you should get your house cleaned, your laundry done, your tires rotated, and if I were you, I’d insist on nightly blow jobs. Did you think I wouldn’t notice that you’re still trying to keep your thumb on me?”

“Comedy is hard. In many ways, it's like singing: If you have perfect pitch, it's much easier. But you can still go a long way toward mastering the rudiments if you must trust your voice. Most of the mistakes I've seen people make in trying to write funny is that they don't trust their own senses of humor. They don't think they're funny, and they set out to write funny the way they've read other people being funny with a grim determination that pretty much precludes any chance that anybody is going to have fun. Relax, listen to your characters, exploit their fears and flaws, and mine their situations for places in which they can use their own brands of humor.”

“nfatuation lasts anywhere from six months to three years, and you can't know you've found the right person until you're worked your way through it.”

“Infatuation is the fun part of falling in love. Infatuation triggers a chemical in the brain called PEA, your heart races, and you get breathless and dizzy, you tremble, and you can't think. It's what most people think of when they think of falling in love, and everybody goes through it.”

“Every species has a dinner date as part of courting ritual. A woman who won't let you pay for dinner is rejecting your courtship. She may think she's playing fair, or that she's being a feminist, but a very deep level, she knows that she's crossing you off her list of possibilities.”

“My studies have shown that the process of falling into mature love happens in four steps. When you meet a woman, you subconsciously look for cues that she's the kind os person you should be with. That's assumption. If she passes the assumption test, you begin to get to know her to find out if she's appropriate for you. If she is, you're attracted. If, as you get to know her, the attraction is reinforced with joy or pain or both, you'll fall into infatuation. And if you manage to make a connection and attach to each other during infatuation, you'll move into mature, unconditional love.”

“I suppose you had to," Wes said when Phin went back to join him at the table."Pretty much. She seduced me.""Yeah, right," Wes said. "She said, 'Please fix the kitchen drain,' and you interpreted that--""She said, 'Fuck me.' " Phin put two balls on the table and picked up his cue. "I interpreted that to mean she wanted sex.""Oh." Wes picked up his cue. "That would have been my call, too." He squinted at the table. "Why would she have said that?""On a guess? Because she wanted sex.”

“Sophie held the [hand]cuffs higher, hopint to instill some sense of shame, if not in him, then at least in herself. One look at him and she wanted him again. "I found them in the bed.""That makes sense," Phin said. "That's where I lost them.""I'd ask what you were doing with them," Sophie said, trying not to sound bitchy, "but I probably don't want to know, do I?""Sure you do. It was exciting and different and depraved." Phin nodded toward the stairs. "Go put them someplace we can find them, and I'll show you later.”

“Don't even think about it.""Well, when can I walk by myself?""When you get your driver's license.""You always, always say that." Dillie scowled at him. "That's when everything happens.""It's going to be a busy day," Phin agreed.”

“She gave Rachel her usual obsessively loving smile, including Phin in it, too, as her future son-in-law. Such a nice couple, her smile said. What lovely grandchildren they'll give me. And they'll live right next door.Phin's answering smile said, Not a chance in hell, while Rachel gazed at Justice and Mercy, pretending she'd never heard of pornography or sex, or Phin, for that matter.”

“[...] And those women with the camera looked loose."Excellent, Phin thought. At last, some good news.”

“I'm talkin' about you. Stop pretending you're normal. You're insane. Make that work for you.”

“...If you can look at somebody and say, 'I never loved you, you were a mistake,' that's one thing. But if you look at him and say, 'You were everything and I poisoned it because I wouldn't stand up for myself,' that's hard. That's too hard...”

“You know who you remind me of? The kid cop in Lethal Weapon 3. You know, the one who says, 'it's my twenty-first birthday today', and right away you know he's dead meat?”

“I even yelled at you last night." Phin eased up. "For which I apologize.""It was kind of nice," Sophie said. "At least you know I was there.""Oh hell, Spohie, I always know you're there." Phin rolled twords her on one hip, and Sophie felt felt a flare of hope, but he was just digging something out of his back pocket. "Here." He weld out an emerald-cut diamond ring the size of her head. "Marry me, Julie Ann. Ruin the rest of my life.""Hello." Sophie gasped at the ring. "Jeez, that thing is huge. Where did you get it?""My mother gave it to me," Phin said sounding bemused. Then the other shoe dropped. "Marry you?" Sophie said, and the sun came out and the birds to sing and the river sent up a cheer. Marriage was probably out- Liz as a mother-in-law was too terrifying to complete , and Phin would never get elected agian if he was married to a pornographer- but suddenly everything else was looking pretty good.”

“Okay, Shane," Agnes said as Brenda's clock gonged midnight. "I got Joey in the kitchen, a cop in the front hall, a dead body in the basement, and you in my bedroom. Where do you want to start?”

“Look, I'm not ready for you," Min said. "I'm not prepared. I don't have any defenses when you're around. I make these plans and I mean it, I really do, and then I kiss you because I'm crazy about you which would be fine if I didn't fall in love with you but there that is, just standing there, and you know it, you know you've got me.”

“Mason was leaving her for a fifty-four-year-old woman who didn't moisturize”

“Once you know the truth, it's always obvious”

“I believe things will work out for us if we just believe in ourselves.”

“Real life doesn't have to suck.”

“We're going to need a bigger dock”

“On the very outside chance that we might play again, you should know that pool is the closest thing I have to a religion. Don't ever throw a game with me again.”

“Hell, your kid is fucking my wife, and your wife is fucking me. [...]Not that she's any good, Zane said, looking at Georgia, and when she made a little cry of protest, he added, Hell Georgia, even Jell-O moves when you eat it.”

“- Teach me something new, she said, and he bent her back onto the bed and she shivered as his body slid against hers.- Okay, Phin said. But pay attention, Julie Ann, there'll be a quiz.”

“I've been spending a lot of time out of here," Harry said. Thank God I don't have a date tonight. This would not be in easy smell to explain.”